banjo-kazooie

December 30, 2020

Banjo-Kazooie Was Briefly Listed As Coming To Wii U

Peter Paltridge banjo-kazooie, nintendo, rare, video games, Wii U 0

Last night on Nintendo’s Japanese website, the craziest thing happened. The Wii U release schedule was updated for the first time in a long time, and it listed two games coming to the Virtual Console marketplace the following day: Banjo-Kazooie and Blast Corps (under its original name Blast Dozer). Immediately, social media lit up with speculation, and “Banjo-Kazooie” started trending on Twitter. Was Nintendo really going to put two classic Rare titles on a system they don’t even manufacture anymore? It sounded loopy, but they’ve ACTUALLY DONE weirder things. Sadly, the incident turned out to be an error. Nintendo updated the page this morning with the message “Banjo-Kazooie” and “Blast Dozer” have been posted as Wii U software delivered on December 30, 2020, but they will not be delivered. We apologize for the correction.” (We used Google Translate to quote that, which is why it sounds off.) So what does this mean? You would think if Nintendo accidentally listed a game, it would be a game with a chance of

April 12, 2017

Yooka-Laylee (Xbox One) Review

Nathan Gibson 3d platformer, banjo-kazooie, nintendo 64, pc, playtonic games, PS4, rare, switch, xbox, yooka-laylee

As you might have guessed from its name, Yooka-Laylee is a tribute to the retro 3D platformers that were first introduced to the world two decades ago, most notably taking inspiration from Rare’s Banjo-Kazooie. It has been crafted by Playtonic Games, made up of several former Rare staffers, and was funded due to a highly successful Kickstarter campaign that grabbed attention by promising to recreate a faithful experience to what fans had expected from games of this genre in the 90s. From the very first moment that you start up the game, it is clear that this is a title centered around the same quirky aspects that made the likes of Banjo such a success. Whether it is the gorgeous visuals and bright palette of colors, the unintelligible dialogue of the characters, or the comedy that accompanies almost every interaction. The five distinctive worlds are all filled with a cast of zany characters that will almost definitely entertain you as you interact with them. The story is as simple as

December 22, 2015

Dream: Rare Reveals Footage of Unreleased RPG

Jeffrey Harris banjo-kazooie, Dream: Land of Giants, rare 0

Game developer Rare unveiled some “rare” footage that will certainly get the gears turning and have the fans of the company’s game salivating. During the development for the Rare Replay compilation that was released this year, the company unearthed some footage that had been sitting in the archives of Rare’s unreleased RPG project, Dream: Land of Giants. This Rare game is the fabled precursor to Banjo-Kazooie. Rare also recorded new interview footage with the Dream and Banjo-Kazooie developers for the video, which you can also check out in the player below. Dream followed the boy hero Edson and his dog Dinger. The project eventually morphed into what became the hit game Banjo-Kazooie. The attempt with Dream by the Rare team was to try and make an RPG for the Super Nintendo console using the then high-quality rendered graphics of the Donkey Kong Country series. The footage shows a more isometric type of game and a boy hero with his sword. Ultimately, Edson became Banjo the bear, who was transplanted to

August 22, 2015

Rare Hints At Launching Behind-The-Scenes Video Series

Peter Paltridge banjo-kazooie, microsoft, rare, rareware, xbox one 0

Earlier this month, the compilation title Rare Replay was released for XBox One. It contains thirty games from the once-legendary game designer’s past, most of which have not been made available since the N64 days. Iin the case of their early titles for the ZX Spectrum, some of them have never been available in America at all. One bonus feature that can be slowly unlocked in Rare Replay is a series of behind-the-scenes videos called “Rare Revealed” that show how many of the games in the collection were put together, as well as the first-ever glimpses of games that were planned at one point but never made. Unfortunately some of the more interesting videos are incredibly hard to unlock, requiring hours of practice with some of the more awful games in the Rare Replay collection. In cases like this, it’s a good thing we have YouTube, right? Rare thinks so too. That’s why they’re planning on continuing the Rare Revealed series on their YouTube channel soon. They made the announcement

June 1, 2015

Does Rare’s Project Dream Exist In Some Form?

Peter Paltridge banjo-kazooie, project dream, rare, tim stamper 0

Back when Rare had just started working as Nintendo’s second party and were racking up recognition with Killer Instinct and the Donkey Kong Country trilogy, they secretly began plans for their most ambitious title to date, which went by the codename “Project Dream.” Little is known about the game, how it would have played or what storyline it would have contained, but we do know the main character (a boy named Edison, who carried a wooden sword) and the game’s villain, which would have been a pirate named Captain Blackeye. As the SNES limped toward retirement, Rare shifted the project to the N64, and somewhere between then and the summer of 1997 a secondary character named Banjo the Bear stole the lead role from Edison and the game’s theme changed entirely. That became Banjo-Kazooie, which saw release in 1998. Always self-referential, Rare put Captain Blackeye in the back room of a bar in Banjo-Tooie, drinking his sorrows away with ginger beer and lamenting “I had a dream….I were in this

April 3, 2015

Banjo In Smash? XBox Head OK With The Idea

Peter Paltridge banjo, banjo-kazooie, microsoft, nintendo, Smash Bros., Super Smash Bros 0

As you’re filling out the Smash Bros. Fighter Ballot, you might assume there are certain realistic limits to what you can suggest. As nice as it would be to see a Rare character or two appear in the game, appearing there googly-eyed like the Nintendo 64 days never left, you know Microsoft would never allow it. Or wait, maybe they would. Someone asked the president of Microsoft’s XBox division, Phil Spencer, if Banjo was a possible candidate for Smash DLC, and Phil responded. Pedro @PedroDarkinson @XboxP3 Nintendo is holding a poll for the next Smash Bros DLC, and Banjo is a popular choice! It would mean so much if you could get him in Phil Spencer @XboxP3 @PedroDarkinson I think it would be cool if Banjo was in the next SSB DLC. We’ve worked with Nintendo on Rare IP before, no issues. Between this and Jetpac appearing intact in the upcoming Virtual Console release of Donkey Kong 64, it’s nice to see the wall between Nintendo and Microsoft slowly crumbling.